Cargo is consolidated with other shippers' goods at origin and deconsolidated at destination, so the move involves a shared container and extra handling at both ends, with each consignment documented per shipper while the container itself travels as one unit. For the booking desk the term frames a basic decision: consolidate the shipment, or book the whole container outright. The opposite arrangement is FCL, full container load, where one shipper's cargo has the container to itself under a single booking instead of sharing the box.
Glossary
LCL (Less than Container Load)
A shipment too small to fill its own container, moving as one consignment among several shippers' cargo consolidated into a shared container.